Entry rules and the visa fee at the airport
The UK Foreign Office says visitors can enter Madagascar visa-free for up to 15 days by paying a 10-euro administration fee on arrival. For longer stays, tourist visas valid for 30 or 60 days can be bought at the airport in US dollars, euros or Malagasy ariary, and either can be extended to a maximum total stay of 90 days while in the country. A passport must be valid for at least six months beyond arrival and have at least two blank pages, and a yellow fever certificate is required from countries with transmission risk.
Rules differ by nationality, so use the Foreign Office text as an example and check your own. Keep cash in the right currencies and your accommodation details saved offline before you reach the visa desk.
Yas's tourist eSIM, bought with a voucher in a store
Yas Madagascar's eSIM page describes an eSIM touriste offer: a prepaid plan for 30 days at 60,000 ariary, or 12 euros subject to the exchange rate, with 5 GB of data, 1 hour of national calls, 5 minutes of international calls and 50 SMS to any operator. International calls cover a list of destinations that includes France, Réunion, Mayotte, Martinique, Guadeloupe, the United Kingdom, the USA, China, India and Thailand.
The process is three steps. You buy the eSIM with a voucher in a Yas Shop, register with the help of staff and scratch the voucher to scan the QR code with your smartphone. The page lists nine stores: Diego Foch, Fort Dauphin, Morondava, Nosy Be Mall, Sainte Marie, Tamatave Avenue, Tuléar, Zoom Ankorondrano and the airport store at Ivato. The eSIM is open to new and existing Yas customers with a compatible phone, and the page lists supported models from iPhone XS onwards, Google Pixel 3 and later, Samsung Galaxy S20 and newer and some Honor, Huawei and Oppo phones.
The page does not state which identity document registration needs, so bring your passport. It also means the eSIM cannot be bought online or before landing, so install it after you have bought the voucher, using airport Wi-Fi or your hotel's connection.
Local data bundles after the first 5 GB
Five gigabytes will not cover a month of maps and video calls, so Yas's domestic internet bundles are the next step. At the time of checking, the Ye'low One bundle was 1,000 ariary for 1 GB valid 24 hours, Net Week 5,000 was 1.2 GB for 7 days, Net Week 10,000 was 3 GB for 7 days, Net Month 15,000 was 2.5 GB for 30 days, Net Month 25,000 was 4.5 GB and Net Month 75,000 was 15 GB. Each is activated by dialling a USSD code beginning #322*.
Yas describes its network in these bundles as the number one network in Madagascar, which is a marketing claim, not a regulator ranking. Whether the signal reaches a given reserve or beach is not stated. If a bundle is valid for 24 hours only, count the days before buying, since 1,000 ariary a day adds up faster than a weekly pack.
Roads, protests and cyclone season
The UK Foreign Office says road conditions vary greatly and are often poor, that many roads outside Antananarivo have steep gradients and sharp bends, that armed robberies occur on main roads especially at night and that in the rainy season from December to April secondary roads may become impassable. It adds that cyclones typically occur from November to April in coastal areas and can cut access to remote regions.
It also notes significant protests in Antananarivo and other parts of Madagascar in late September and early October 2025 and advises avoiding large gatherings. A phone cannot fix any of this. Download offline maps for each leg, save your driver's and hotel's numbers and agree check-in times before a long drive, because a stretch without signal on a poor road is a normal part of the trip.
Emergency numbers: landline and mobile codes differ
The UK Foreign Office gives different codes for fixed and mobile phones. For ambulance or police it lists 17 from a landline and 117 from a mobile, for the police station directly it lists 19 from a landline and 119 from a mobile, and for fire it lists 18 and 118. Save the mobile versions, since a visitor will be calling from a mobile line or from an eSIM.
Yas's tourist eSIM includes national voice minutes, so a voice-capable profile exists, and a test call to a Malagasy number after setup is the way to confirm it.
Setting up the eSIM and keeping your home number
Apple says an iPhone must be unlocked to use a travel eSIM and that you choose the cellular data line in Settings, Cellular, with iMessage and FaceTime staying on the home number. Google says Pixel 3a and later phones can combine one physical SIM and one eSIM. Samsung describes eSIM setup in SIM manager. We could not open Orange Madagascar's or Airtel Madagascar's visitor pages, so we do not describe their offers. Our Madagascar plan page is an option if you want data before you arrive.
Networks our Madagascar plans use
These are the operators named on our plans for Madagascar, taken from the plan data, so the list follows the catalogue.
- Airtel4G
- Orange4G
- Orange Madagascar S.A.4G